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Published in the June 2012 IssuePublished online: Jun 10, 2012Tyler J. Baum, Editor

It's amazing how time flies! Our 40th anniversary is coming up in just a couple months! The inaugural issue of our magazine, called Potato Grower of Idaho at the time, rolled off the presses in September 1972 and was distributed to 10,000 people in Idaho and across the country. Forty years later, a lot has changed-with our magazine and with the industry itself, not to mention the world!

We want to celebrate it properly with a 40th anniversary issue. We publish 13 times a year-once per month, plus an extra Idaho Annual in homage to our days as primarily a an Idaho publication-so we've decided to turn our 2012 Idaho Annual, to be mailed out the first week of November, into a special "40th Anniversary" issue!

While still giving you high-quality magazine issues from month to month, packed full of relevant agronomic topics, timely news and high-resolution photos, we're in the process of putting together the articles and photos to make that issue something special.

We want YOU to be a part of it! In my "From the Field" column in last year's Industry Handbook (October 2011 issue) I commented that an increasing number of growers out there may not even remember our maiden issue! For you Idaho growers out there who do, what was your first impression of Potato Grower of Idaho? How has the issues growers deal with changed over the years? How has your operation changed in that four decades? Was the farm in the family? (Like me, were you even born yet?)

We also want you growers out there to feel free to take photos of your operation this summer and fall and send them to us so we can run in the 40th anniversary issue. Not only would we like to see the unique perspectives (historical, geological, etc.) that only you can see on your farm, but we even want to see some of the mundane. Photos taken of the mundane on a potato farm in 1972 will reveal more than words can express 40 years later.

Just email me at tbaum@potatogrower.com. If you got a lot of photos or high-resolution photos (the more high-resolution, the better), we can give you instructions to log onto our online ftp site, where you can just copy the photos into the folder. Or, if you still have hard copies of your photos, email me and let me know. I'll let you know our mailing address, and I'll make sure the photos are sent back to you in the same condition.

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